Windows Donations to Schools and Libraries: Charity or Tyranny?

The Gates Foundation has been a source of computer donations to public libraries in the U.S., but it only supplies them with Windows-equipped computers. An indirect effect of this philanthropy has been to boost Microsoft’s market share. “Schools should not accept ANY support from organizations promoting proprietary software and not education primarily,” argues educator Robert Pogson.

October 8, 2009 by Uncategorized 6

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6 Responses

  1. Anonymous says:
    October 8, 2009 at 1:37 pm

    didn’t Apple start that in the 80’s???
    I thought Apple gave computers to schools way before the Gates Foundation ever existed.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous says:
    October 8, 2009 at 2:59 pm

    I think…
    If I’m not mistaken, the Gates foundation allocates a certain amount of money for each computer. I’m pretty sure you can use whatever OS you want after the fact…

    Reply
  3. Chuck says:
    October 8, 2009 at 3:48 pm

    infuriating
    This is easily the damn stupidest thing I’ve heard this month.

    Has anyone here ever gotten a good inside look at an inner-city school / public library or one in the coal country? They have a lot more problems than a bunch of blogging dweebs bitching about the unfairness of the OS apartheid or whatever the hell they call it.

    The kids in these schools and communities have nothing: not at school and not at home. They face grimmer odds of success than a WWI trench soldier. Your ecclesiastical worries about Linux or OS X is akin to a Roman emperor staring at his roasted leg of lamb and worrying that the typhus-infected slaves of the Jewish quarter won’t be able to appreciate the appropriate pairing of fine wine with a said roasted leg of lamb.

    Mr. Pogson, maybe you could write an open source, multi-platform program to pull your head out of your ass.

    Reply
    • Anonymous says:
      October 13, 2009 at 8:38 pm

      OS apartheid
      Love that term!
      And it’s true that there are a lot of places that would be thrilled to have any technology, regardless of the platform or age.
      But I agree with something I read somewhere that said children should be learning computers on a more basic, generic level. They should be learning how to think and reason logically, not how to use the latest version of Windows, Mac, or whatever.

      Reply
  4. Anonymous says:
    October 8, 2009 at 8:29 pm

    Apple comment above …
    That was my first thought, and, yes, they did. What goes around comes around.

    Reply
  5. Anonymous says:
    October 13, 2009 at 6:22 am

    It’s a free country…
    Whine… Steve Job’s foundation (oh wait, does he have one?) or Apple are free to donate hardware to schools as well.

    Reply

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